Exercise calories???

When you exercise, you need to go into the Exercise section of MFP and log your exercise activities. This will then essentially add allowable calories to your daily log that you can either use to create additional deficit or eat back. If you are exercising a lot, you may want to eat back your calories for the nutritional impact (hot debate topic on MFP).

Example: for your desired weight (either loss or maintenance), MFP has you eat 1800 cals per day. You exercise (for ease of an example, you run at a speed of 6mph (10:00/mile), for 20 minutes (2 miles). You "gain" about 250ish calories for that exercise. Therefore, your daily allowed calories increases to 2050 cals. Make sense?

Greg

One addition to what the others have said. You have to add the exercise as "Cardiovascular." Exercise added as "Strength Training" doesn't add any calories to your daily allotment.

MFP set your calorie limit based upon ZERO exercise. Some people choose to exercise, some don't. Because the calorie deficit is already "built in" - you are expected to eat your calories back. A word of caution ...... if you are using calorie burns provided by machines, and/or MFP .... these are estimates. Unless you are using a heart rate monitor (more accurate) .... you might want to start by eating back a percentage ..... and see how that goes.

There is debate as to IF you should eat these calories. I DO eat them because: 1. I am closer to goal (than some) 2. I want to keep muscle & lose JUST fat. Extra calories are the FUEL for your workouts.

Exercising widens that deficit to a level that may be unsustainable so here on MFP when you log your workout as complete then the calories are added so you can eat them, maintaining the deficit for losing weight.

Thanks for replying. So if I exercise in the morning, I should get more calories to eat in the day but if I do it in the evening then I don't really gain anything. Is that right?

Depends on when you want to eat as well. I have a fairly straight routine, so on days (like yesterday) where I know I am going to go to the gym and play basketball, lift weights, and run, I will eat as if I will be adding the calories that I will earn during that exercise. Same with the days I run - I eat in advance because I will burn the snot out of my calories and be fatigued if I don't eat ahead of time.

One thing that is another highly debated topic in addition to eating your exercise cals back is WHEN to eat. If you exercise at night, you may want to evaluate if you want to "reward" yourself with eating back the calories after you exercise and before going to bed. I sometimes do, and I am okay with that. Others will say NEVER eat before going to bed. It is definitely an individual thing.

Also, one of the posts above says to log as cardiovascular - 100% agree, and sometimes it will be hard to find the exact exercise you did. Sometimes it is a guessing game - but then again, sometimes it is a guessing game for logging food too (especially at restaurants).

Greg

Should the calucator add the exercise calories to your daily allowance or do you have to just figure it for yourself?

I generally make a decision on whether I will eat my exercise calories back depending on the type of exercise and the calorie amount burned. For example, if burn 150 calories during my workout, I generally won't eat these calories, but if I burn 300-400 calories, I try to eat at least half or a quarter of them back. The word is is that your body can go into starvation mode making it harder to lose weight because it is trying to hang onto that fat for "food". Like some have mentioned above, be cautious on entering the calories burned from using machines/Wii/Xbox because these can be "estimates". So, that is why I generally don't go hog wild and eat them all back. Sometimes my body is still full from dinner so I don't want to overeat. Once you get used to how you will handle it, do what is easiest and makes most sense to you.

Good points. Thanks.

Never mind, I must not have entred it as cardiovascular; it is working properly now. Thanks.

One addition to what the others have said. You have to add the exercise as "Cardiovascular." Exercise added as "Strength Training" doesn't add any calories to your daily allotment.

I did not know that! Thank you Sir